Come Close
by RochelleRene
Summary: This is my take on a post-S7, from a House perspective.   It's essentially a one-shot, but I put in some short introductory scenes to lead up to it.  It starts with the finale.


**This is my take on a post-S7, from a House perspective. It's essentially a one-shot, but I put in some short introductory scenes to lead up to it. It starts with the finale.**

**I have to give a shout-out to NCISmelanie. Her [H] vids are amazing and a Huddy one really helped to inspire this fic: .com/user/NCISmelanie#p/u/4/wb_0W9vWbCw**

**A line in it is from the song by The Xx that she used. Thanks for your great work, girl!**

**Of course I don't own these characters... Maybe Cuddy is for sale now?**

The sound of that much glass shattering around you wouldn't make a tinkle. It would be a thunderous roar. And the jolt to his body would be shocking, possibly even breaking him. But the thought of exploding into the side of her house was delicious.

He wanted that preppy motherfucker to ask, "Who the hell is _that_?"

He wanted Cuddy to be incapable of diluting their relationship to a forgotten hairbrush.

He wanted to smash _something_ when he saw her laughing with him, touching his shoulder. He wasted to smash the whole scene into oblivion – so that it hadn't happened.

He imagined the roar, the jolt, the chaos for a full minute as he watched them eat.

Then he laid the brush on her porch step and limped back to the car.

[H]

House looked up from his desk to see Cuddy opening his door and tentatively stepping into his office. He hated how everything was different now. She used to always stride in there like it was _her_ office and they engaged in a bodily pissing match to assert their authority – a hand on a hip countered with feet on the desk, met by two hands splayed wide across the desk, which provoked some ball bouncing or even a nonchalant walking out that said, "I'm not the least bit worried."

Now she was tentatively stepping.

House looked back down at what he was reading quickly, avoiding eye contact.

"I just wanted to thank you for bringing my brush back," Cuddy stated, her matter-of-fact tone incongruent with her nervous physical approach.

House glanced at her, trying to make this as easy as possible and avoid a big discussion. Oh shit – _he_ was tentatively stepping. "No problem," he replied gruffly. "Should have noticed it sooner." As if he hadn't. Every day. Every single day since she left when he brushed his teeth, or took a shower, or pissed.

"Should we talk?' she asked.

"Nope," House sang in the tone he'd always reserved for Cuddy – cheerfully acidic.

"House, I know maybe you saw something last night, but it wasn't – "

"Don't know what you're talking about, Cuddles." He sharply shut a folder, tossed it aside and stood, grabbing his cane. He limped toward the door. "Wilson took it up to the porch for me," he explained, walking away from her. "See I got this _leg pain_… Why I use the _cane_… And the _Vicodin_."

Cuddy blinked at him with pursed lips and a furrowed brow - his favorite way to leave her.

[H]

"I didn't lie to you," Cuddy proclaimed quickly.

He seriously needed to use his peephole more. House sighed and closed the door slightly, sending the clear message that she wasn't invited in.

"I just need you to know that, House," she continued. "What you saw was a first date that my sister set up and I wasn't hiding anyth – "

"I didn't see anything, Cuddy, so stop obsessing. Oh wait, then what is it you would do, exactly?"

"I just thought we could act like adults and talk about this, House – "

"See the beauty of having no girlfriend, Cuddy, is that you can stop _talking _so goddamn much._"_

"You're such an asshole," Cuddy said, pissed off at his avoidance. "I don't know how I ever got past that glaring problem."

"Your mother and daughter love me," he said, "so apparently it's a genetic mutation."

She was clearly wounded by this reference to her family and she turned on her heel and went down the steps.

[H]

Wilson was wasted.

He'd come over to House's apartment to drink a little and play cards all night, but ended up inverting that. At this point they were having a contest in which Wilson, sprawled on the couch, named any song and House, sitting at his piano, had 5 seconds to play a dirty version it. Wilson was trying to thing of all the syrupy, innocent songs he could.

"Elton John – Blue Eyes," Wilson threw out.

House scoffed at the easiness. "Blue baaaaaalls. Wilson's got… bluuuue balls," he crooned.

"If anyone here's got blue balls," Wilson slurred, "It's you."

"I guarantee you I've had sex more recently than you," House retorted.

"It's not just recency," Wilson explained. "You were having _regular_ sex more recently than me, then got cut off. Your body needs time to adjust." House considered this. "I haven't had _regular _sex in a _lot_ longer than you," Wilson said triumphantly.

House smirked. "You win, Wilson." But Wilson was too in the bag to even get the irony.

He finally decided he needed to go home, so he called a cab. "Apartment 221B," he told the listener before hanging up.

"What the hell do they need the apartment number for, Wilson? You think the cabbie's gonna come carry your ass down?"

Wilson seemed to ponder this idea. "Prob'ly not," he concluded and he started gathering his stuff. Wilson wove around like a drunk co-ed and made it out the door without puking on the rug, at least.

House unscrewed his pill bottle and shook two Vicodin into his palm. He wanted to sleep and stop thinking about her for a few hours. It was an ironic slug to the stomach that even his Vicodin now brought her to mind. The fucking Vicodin. Why'd she get so hung up on the fucking Vicodin? She'd _known_ him on Vicodin. She'd _wanted_ him on Vicodin. In many ways, he was a better person on Vicodin. On Vicodin he could show up. It dulled the pain enough for him to love someone.

He swallowed the pills with a mouthful of scotch and stretched out on the couch. He realized he still sat with his thighs splayed, making space for her to nest against him. He defiantly crossed his legs at the ankle and stretched them out long, hitting the other armrest. He felt the combination of narcotics and depressants start to do its thing. His thinking slowed. His facial muscles relaxed, finally releasing the scowl from his face. She floated there in his mind – he couldn't get rid of that – but in a vague, harmless way. Her smile, her eyes, her soft toughness – he just thought about her existing, not about her being miles away from him. He even thought about her nestled again another man – that other man – and he felt repulsed, but the way he did watching a violent nature program. It was gruesome, but the way of the world. He didn't feel the rage he had initially. He was beginning to slide into not feeling much at all, and it was perfect.

He was so stoned and exhausted that he almost didn't register the knock on his door. He didn't know if it had been three minutes or three hours, but Wilson must not have made it down the stairs even. "It's still open, you drunk schmuck," House called. He promptly let himself sink back into half-sleep as he listened to Wilson let himself in and shuffle across the floor. When he heard him sink down on the floor beside him, he opened one eye and met a pair of luminous gray ones.

A jolt went through his body, but he internally steeled himself and didn't bat his single open eye. "You're a lot hotter when I'm drunk, Wilson."

Cuddy gave a tight-lipped not-real smile. She was nervous. _Good_, he thought. He closed his eye. "What are you doing here, Cuddy?" he grumbled. There was a full half minute of silence after that question.

"I don't know," she finally offered. "It's…" She didn't finish. His lids slid open. She was shaking a little. "Sometimes…" she tried again.

"Oh, God, are you here to talk rape me, Cuddy? No means no, woman!"

"Sometimes I still need you."

It hung there.

House inhaled slowly and loudly, then exhaled and sat up on the couch. He looked at Cuddy sitting cross-legged on his floor, then let his head fall back against the couch. "So what is this then?" he finally asked. "Your version of the booty call?" He leaned to the coffee table and nonchalantly shook two more Vicodin into his palm and tossed them into his mouth, meeting her eyes to make a point.

"I'll take what I can get," she replied before he'd swallowed. "I need you. You're destroying me, but I can't stop." House stared at her, the pills dissolving slowly in a bitter pool at the back of his tongue. "For God's sake, you of all people should know what I'm talking about," she scolded. "You swallow it, snort it, inject it. Whatever it takes when you need it. Until you almost wreck your whole life and someone says you can't have it anymore."

"And then I do it again," he said, gulping the pills that he'd held in his mouth. He was warning her. This wasn't some fairy tale. This was love and addiction… An ugly, messy combination.

"You do it to keep everyone at a distance, to not feel anything, even though you claim to want a connection –"

"I'm not capable of that!" House cut her off. "You knew that getting in!" His breath quickened with anger and hurt and frustration. "I did what I had to do to come close, to be close to what you deserved."

She just stared at him, her eyes welling up with tears that wouldn't fall out of her sheer will to keep it together.

"Fuck you, Cuddy," he said flatly. She startled a bit even though he hadn't raised his voice. "Do you have some kind of fetish for coming over here to lecture me about my fucked up-ness? I was a year into sobriety and you were about to become a made-for-TV movie and you can't understand that?" He pulled back inside, resisting the urge to let it all out. Letting it out meant letting her back in and that was not happening tonight. Wait, that was not happening ever. Right? "Go home, Cuddy, and tell yourself how righteous and justified you are," he said, getting up and limping to the kitchen to refill his scotch even though he was still drunk. "But spare me the details." He sipped.

House leaned sideways against the doorframe to his kitchen, looking down at her back where she sat on the floor. "I don't know what I'm doing," she whispered. He waited. He watched her stand up and walk toward him. She moved around behind him and wrapped her arms around him, her hands against his chest. He felt her face pressed between his shoulder blades.

"Neither do I," he answered.

[H]

He let one hand reach up and wrap around one of hers. They stood like that for a ridiculously long time, neither sure what they themselves nor the other wanted.

"You don't wanna do this, Cuddy," House finally grumbled, but his hand didn't loosen its grip on hers.

"What is 'this,' House?" she asked. He'd missed the rasp of her voice. "The sex? The love?"

"Both," he answered. "The midnight doorway promises you can't keep. You're delusional."

"I'm not," Cuddy insisted. She walked around to face him, sliding her hands to his back. She looked up at him and he looked across the room at the door. "I knew what it was, but now I know what it will be." House looked down at her. "I can't fix you."

[H]

Their mouths met clumsily at first, as if pretending it was some kind of accident. Their lips brushed across each other. She tasted his stubble, he tasted the smooth line of her jaw. God, even when he was pissed and confused and scared this woman could cut right through it and consume him.

House's hand reached into her hair and pulled her face to his with a passion that teetered on violence. He dropped his drink on the floor and used his other arm to brace himself as he slid Cuddy against the doorjamb. He buried his face in her neck.

"I'm drunk," he cautioned.

"I know." She slid her hand up the front of his shirt, up to his chest and down his sides.

He ran his nose along her collarbone, from one shoulder to the other, smelling her again.

"I'm stoned." Unbuttoning her shirt.

"I know." Unbuttoning his .

Cuddy lay her head back against the wall and he kissed along her neck again while he shrugged out of his shirt. She ran her fingers through his hair.

"You should go." Bite.

"I know." Pull.

House slid her shirt off her shoulders. His fingers tickled down either side of her spine and she arched up into his body. He pulled up on the small of her back, getting her closer and closed his eyes. He couldn't think and he didn't know if it was the chemicals or the… what? The chemistry?

With his eyes still closed, he felt her small hand find his and begin to pull him. He followed her to the bedroom in a trance.

Cuddy stopped suddenly in the doorway. "Um…" he saw her looking up at the ceiling. At the balloons. At the 5 dozen fucking balloons floating there.

House sighed. "Wilson. It was a prank. Long story."

Cuddy nodded, used to this sort of explanation. She stretched out half dressed on the bed and smiled at him. He stood there. He looked at her. His heart was bleeding.

"What does this mean?" he mumbled. Cuddy blinked at him and her smile faded a little. "Does this mean starting over… Detox? Rehab? What do you want from me, Cuddy?" He sounded fatigued. He reached out and ran his fingers lightly along one of her thighs. He steeled himself for what she'd ask of him. The price of this.

Cuddy propped herself up on her elbows. Her hair hung in a waterfall behind her. He wanted to stop noticing things like this, but it was his nature. "It means just this, House," she explained. "I'm not asking you to promise me anything."

House nodded once, suspicious. She either still loved him or still wanted to fix him. The former thrilled him and the latter infuriated him. He stood there, deliberating. And still feeling her thigh.

Cuddy sat up and swung her feet over the side of the bed so he was standing between her legs. "Look, you've screwed up. Many times. And I got over it… I screwed this up. I decided it wasn't working too fast… Or that it not working meant it shouldn't be happening," she laughed a little at her confused babbling. She looked up to see him staring into space and she held his face, making him look at her. "Maybe us not working is all that works for us. It's how we've always been. Maybe I need to stop trying to fix it."

That ruled out the latter option in his deliberation and all that was left was the former. Or a third option, but he preferred to ignore that idea. He ignored it by bending down to kiss her stomach, unhooking her bra as he did so. It fell off her chest and onto his head and made her laugh and it was so awesome to hear that again. "Laugh all you want," he smirked. "You have no idea how many bets I just won." She laughed harder. "Seriously," he said looking around, "Can you take a picture with my phone? The odds were doubled when you dumped me." She pulled it off his head and threw it.

House kissed each knee and slid his hands up her thighs. He began kissing up her legs and Cuddy flopped back onto the bed as her knees began trembling. House's mouth slid up her leg to meet her sex and he felt her fingers in his hair again. He held her hips when they started to move, involuntarily bucking away and toward the pressure of his tongue against her. He was slow and lazy at first, marveling at how this self-pitying night had turned out. When Cuddy was squirming and sounding rather frustrated he decided to focus and within moments he had her teetering on the edge of bliss. She alternated between pushing her hips up and trying to clumsily sit up. He was driving her crazy, that was clear. And with one pull of her body toward him and one small kiss in the right place she was tumbling into ecstasy, moaning his name and spreading her body out across his bed in the way he always wanted.

He lay next to her. She was a naked goddess in his bed. She rolled onto her side and laid a hand on his arm. "How much do you win for that?" she asked.

"That? Nothing. Your bra on my head was a long-shot. Everyone knew oral sex was a sure thing." She fake-glared at him. "Come on, Cuddy. It's _you_… and _oral sex_." She smacked him halfheartedly. He caught her hand and kissed it. "See, it's a well-known fact that _you_ like _oral sex_ and so the odds aren't in favor of betting –"

"Do you ever shut up?" Cuddy interrupted. She climbed on top of him.

House paused to look down at her body, then gave her a smile "Sometimes," he murmured. Cuddy bent to kiss him and he was lost in a tent of her hair. They kissed forever and he stopped being confused and wary and just enjoyed the taste of her lips and the feeling of her breath mingling with his. He was so lost in it that he felt startled when Cuddy pulled away to drag his pants down his legs before promptly returning. She continued kissing him as she adjusted her body to meet his instinctual upward thrust.

House held her hips down for a moment to just feel her. Again. His large hands slid over every inch of her small frame, which slowly bent into each caress. He slid his hand back to her ass – his favorite – and looked up at her. She glared at him.

"I didn't say anything!" he protested.

"It means it was too foul to say."

He grinned his sideways grin. "Don't blame me, Cuddy. Get to the root of the problem and have an ass-ectomy if it bothers you so much." He pulled her down against him and rolled them over.

He began moving inside of her slowly, kissing her breasts lightly. Cuddy was pulling at him – his head, his hips – to urge him on but he stayed tentative, driving her crazy. She writhed beneath him, all breath and whimpers. Her knee dug into his bad thigh as she tried to position herself to feel more of him. It hurt and he loved that. She wasn't scared of his leg, but was just getting off with him. He began to give her what she wanted, what he wanted, and was lifting her body up a little and pushing into her.

A string brushed against his face. "Fucking Wilson," he grumbled, pausing his sexual efforts and trying to shove the floating balloon away.

"Why… do we always... have to mention Wilson… during sex?" she asked between heavy breaths.

"He's my sidekick," House replied. "Don't you think Batman talked about Robin when he was bangin' Wonder Woman?"

"_Superman_ didn't have a sidekick to distract him… Maybe I need to consider that," Cuddy teased.

"First of all," House said, propping on his elbows, "I love that you are continuing with this metaphor." He smiled and then bent and kissed her deeply. "Secondly, Superman was a tool." Cuddy smirked and did something with her pelvis that made him remember what it was they were doing. Their bodies were pressed together and he could feel her lips glide across his cheek as they moved together. The feeling of her body beneath him and around him was making him lose control. He felt her rhythm breaking as she began her spasms against him. He bit his lip a little.

Suddenly it was ecstasy and House felt his mind exploding with thoughts of her and the wonder of those few moments when the pleasure in his body overtook the pain. Cuddy was shuddering beneath him, her arms wrapped around his shoulders so that she was hanging off of him. He had to be careful not to crush her when he crashed onto the bed, his body spent. The air was filled with the sound of their breathing and the heat of their bodies.

Eventually, he rolled over and pulled a sheet up around them. Covering her up in his bed had this metaphorical aspect to it and his mind again began to wander. He lay there with his arm around her, her head lolling against his shoulder. He stared at the ceiling and realized he was saying his thought out loud, but it was too late. "You still love me…?" came tumbling out in a tone that blended statement and question.

Cuddy responded quickly, as if she was well prepared for this part of the exam. "Sometimes."

It hung there.

"Sometimes I hate you," she added.

Pause.

"But I always need you."

He understood it perfectly. "Addiction's a bitch," he concluded. They fell asleep.


End file.
